Deepa Mehta's Midnight's Children to debut this fall

Canadian director Deepa Mehta hopes to debut herlong-anticipated adaptationof Midnights Children at the Toronto or Venice film festivals later this year.

Mehta iscurrently in the post-production and sound-editingstage of herfilm, which isbased on Salman Rushdies Booker-winning novel. She anticipates it could be completed by May.

Speaking in Toronto Thursday, Mehta said she doesnt yet know where it will debut, but that the decision could come in June.

"I have no idea where its going to premiere. I love [the Toronto International Film Festival] and I love Toronto. Maybe VeniceVenice is a possibility," she told CBC News.

Programmers for the Toronto International Film Festival, set for September, are likely keen to host the premiere of Mehta's high-profile Canadian film. In 2011, TIFFlost out on the debutof David Cronenberg'sA Dangerous Method to the Venice festival, which begins a week earlier.

Mehta said Rushdies novel, about a group of children born on the eve of Indias independence from Britain and endowed with magical powers, has been one of her favourites from the past 40 years. The book charts Indias transition from colonialism to partition and independence.

"Its an epic from 1917 to 1977 in post-colonial India. At the centre of it, its the story of a man and identity and how we broker that. So its really about hope," Mehta said.

The Indo-Canadian filmmaker, known for her Oscar-nominated Water and films such as Bollywood/Hollywood, said Midnights Children was made from a Canadian perspective because it is her movie.

She shared the details of Midnight's Children on Thursday, after receiving an award for her outstanding contribution to film from Indo-Canadian actress Lisa Ray at ceremony to launch the Toronto South Asian International Film Festival. The new event is meant to shine a spotlight on South Asian film and will have its first edition in June 2013.

"Ive often wondered why we dont have [such a festival] in Toronto because we have a huge South Asian community and people who are not South Asians who are interested in the cinema. Its an ideal opportunity to bring the two worlds together," Mehta said.